Researchers see signature of “Majorana particles” inside superconducting iron

[chton]

It's an interesting result for solid-state physicists, but the title is very confusing to the layman. The finding is about quasi particles that have the same properties as a Majorana fermion (a Majorana bound state), due to how electrons behave in a superconductor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorana_fermion#Majorana_boun...). They did not detect a Majorana fermion itself. This is satisfactorily explained in the article, but the title is sensationalist.

[jdimov]

Trust me, your description is orders of magnitude more confusing to the layman.

[jherdman]

> ... but the title is very confusing to the layman

Given the density of knowledge in your comment, I'm not sure the title could be much different to aid in the understanding of the layman.

[hyperliner]

Regardless of what other folks are pointing out, maybe, confusing or not confusing, some layman child reads the article (or your comment) and somehow decides to go into Physics.

That would be great.

[al2o3cr]

(facepalm) Another day, another "popularized" article that confuses condensed-matter quasiparticles with real particles...

[acjohnson55]

Honest question:

If what we think of as real particles are really just useful abstractions over a more complicated reality, but that underlying reality is basically the same thing mathetmatically that exists in condensed-matter, is there a significant difference? Where does the analogy break down?

[kartikkumar]

Here's the press announcement in 2012 of the preceeding work done in Delft: http://www.tudelft.nl/en/current/latest-news/article/detail/.... And here's a link to the related paper on ArXiV: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2792.

I know a few of the people working on the experimental setup within the Kavli Institute. Insanely complex setup! As an aerospace engineer, most of it goes well over my head, but it's interesting nonetheless!

[lnanek2]

> As opposed to particles found in a vacuum, unattached to other matter, these Majoranas are what’s called “emergent particles.” They emerge from the collective properties of the surrounding matter and could not exist outside the superconductor

Sounds a lot like some of the magnetic monopole announcements. It is always more of a situation than an actual thing.

[calhoun137]

This article does demonstrate the principle that virtually every area of active research in material science, no matter how obscure, will one day have a Very Important Application in Quantum Computers. sigh

[fennecfoxen]

Both matter and antimatter? You mean like the photon and, iirc, all the other neutrally charged elementary particles?

New quasi-particle is Majorana. :b

[rprospero]

There's still a distinction between matter and anti-matter for neutral particles. For instance, the neutron and the anti-neutron are distinct, despite being neutral. They have neutral charge, but opposite baryon number. The neutron will decay into a proton by emitting and electron, while the anti-neutron will decay into an anti-proton while emitting a positron. Conservation of baryon number prevents the neutron from decaying into an anti-proton, which would otherwise make neutron sources a cheap and convenient way of producing anti-protons.

[tagrun]

> You mean like the photon and, iirc, all the other neutrally charged elementary particles?

You are missing the point. Photon (and every such other elementary particle that annihilates itself we know) is a boson.

Majorana fermion is a fermion whose anti-particle is itself. No such elementary particle exists (so far).

What these people have done is a way of arranging some electrons such that they behave like Majorana fermions.

[chton]

There is more to being antimatter than just having the opposite charge. The spin of the particle also matters. For a particle to be its own antiparticle, it would have to have spin 1/2. All elementary fermions have that property, but not much else.

Of the 2 classes, fermions and bosons, only fermions can be their own antiparticles. Bosons are defined with having an integer spin, so they can never have spin 1/2. Of the fermions, none are known with neutral charge except for neutrinos, and we're not sure if those are Majorana particles or not.

Photons, as you mention, are bosons, with spin 1, so they can't be their own antiparticle.

[chton]

As has been pointed out to me: ignore my previous comment. I got some fundamentals wrong and should leave the technical explanations to the real physicists :)

[panzi]

I literally just wanted to write the same.

[__abc]

Is this a marijuana joke?